Death of a Kerala Girl, Police in Kannur, Kerala, detained her 55-year-old father Abdul Sathar and a 30-year-old Imam Mohammad Uwaiz just days following an 11-year-old daughter died. When his daughter got ill, Mr. Uwaiz persuaded the family not to get medical treatment for religious reasons, as per the police.
“We have an eyewitness, the family of an Imam, who claims that the Imam was actively involved in encouraging the father not to send his daughter to the hospital.” The witness also claims that the Imam has indeed been engaged in similar incidents before and that he is linked to the deaths of four adults who’d been urged not to seek medical care by him.”
The victim had a temperature, as per the police, but she was not sent to the clinic. Instead, she was escorted to the Imam, who blessed her and told her guardians to recite the Quran before taking her to the clinic. The appellant, a child’s relative, has also requested an investigation into the suspicious deaths of four more individuals who were supposedly confined to superstitious practices that avoided them from getting medical care when they contacted the cleric after procuring different ailments, according to them.
The accuser, the girl’s father’s sibling, had addressed the cops and stated in his declaration that three members of the family had similarly died without receiving treatment in 2014, 2016, and 2018, according to the news outlet. The two defendants were charged with culpable homicide not equal to killing under the Indian Penal Code; and the father was also charged under the Children’s Act. A new investigation is underway.
Despite the existence of a draught Anti-Superstition Bill, Kerala has yet to pass it through the Legislature. Karnataka and Maharashtra are two states that have anti-superstition legislation.